[UPDATE] OWING A DEBT TO ILLUSTRATION

Paper proposals are sought for a panel presentation on Illustrated Texts, in keeping with the MMLA 2012 conference theme of “Debt.”

At least since Mark Twain left it to E. W. Kemble to depict the hero of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, authors and their texts have owed a debt to illustration. At least since James Agee accompanied Walker Evans to photograph Depression-era Alabama sharecroppers, authors have left it to illustrators to depict indebtedness in literary illustrations. Writers have sometimes been indebted to illustrators, while writers and illustrators have sometimes conspired, on the literary market, to depict economic debt on the open market. .

This panel seeks to examine cases in which authors and illustrators have negotiated such economic and symbolic debts in illustrated fictions, photo essays, or graphic novels. Guiding questions might include: what debts do authors owe to illustrators in terms of realism, characterization, evidence, narration, etc? Do our proliferating literary editions or pedagogical approaches accentuate or obscure those debts? Can illustrations depict economic conflicts (such as indebtedness) in ways the written word cannot, or does the extra cost of illustrated or (photo)graphic texts complicate these notions of inter-textual debt? .

The 54th Annual Convention will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio at the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza from November 8-11, 2012. Details about the convention in general are available at http://luc.edu/mmla/annualconvention.html

cfp categories:

african-american

american

bibliography_and_history_of_the_book

cultural_studies_and_historical_approaches

eighteenth_century

ethnicity_and_national_identity

modernist studies

popular_culture

twentieth_century_and_beyond

victorian

By web submission at 05/21/2012 - 14:59

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